Tandems pulling doubles.

It depends on how far the fifth wheel slides on the tandem tractor your are talking about, as well as the particular pup. I drive a tandem with a sliding fifth wheel, and on our fleet there are specific pups that I am never able to pull because there would be a MAJOR conflict between my truck's undercarriage and the dolly legs of the pup even when the fifth wheel is slid back as far as it will go.
I am sure that one of the more experienced drivers could give us a scientific approach to calculate this...?

 

pull under it and then if you hear a crunch you cant haul that trailer.

 

ha,ha,ha Rook, very funny. Tell you what, make sure you do that at your first trucking job.

 

Scary part Walbanger is how many people will take him serious and try that.

 

Yeah, no kidding. Like that driver burky wrote about, that was taught (by a trainer) to back in until his tractor was even with the one next to him. Of course trainer neglected to mention that not all trailers are created equal (length)!

 

The pup should be just like a semi trailer. How heavy is it? I never had any problems hooking up pups with a tandem tractor and I pulled triples. Just check out the rear of the tractor and make sure it will not hit the landing gear. What I would do is back the tractor under the pup just until the fifth wheel touched the trailer. Then get out and look. Make sure you airlines and electrical line is long enough. I asked about the weight because you ALWAYS want to make sure the heaviest trailer is on the front. I've seen alot of tandem tractors pulling doubles and trips so it's not something that's rare.

 

man i hope no body is that stupid, beside "proper" procedure is to back up to the trailer then get out and hook up your air lines and make sure you wont over ride the king pin. at that point i would think people should see theres not enough room.

then again in the army we had a guy do just that, back under a trailer his tractor could not fit under, luckely the landing gear folded back (they were on a pivot)

 

You'd be suprised just how stupid and lazy people can be. I have personally witnessed drivers high-hooking trailers, and just rolling up the gear, hook lines and go, without ever looking at their fifth wheel. I have seen drivers (while doing a drop-n-hook) unhook the pigtail from the tractor and trailer, then plug one end into the trailer and not understand why they had no trailer lights!

 

i some thing similar to that in iraq, we were doing a hook and pull and after hooking up the trailer we took of with every thing working. we hit a big bump and get a call on the radio that our lights on our trailer went out (it was at night) so when we pull over at the next rest halt our pig tail is gone and the cover has an ak round in it. we figure the ak round knocked the pigtail out then it got tangled up on the drive shaft and pulled off. only thing that could have happened. also i have seen some stupid accidents with people. one was backing into a spot and when pulling forward hit the trailer that was parked infront of the spot, had to be a good 100 feet infront of the guy when he started pulling forward.